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Any Hints on how to take Fireworks?

Countdown to 2011 is coming.. plan to somewhere in the Marina Bay area to try and take the fireworks.. Any hints for this kind of photography? its night as well as fast action.. so any night scene mode i use will give motion blur...

Re: Any Hints on how to take Fireworks?

Get your settings right first for long exposure. I find the the blackcard technique under the bulb mode useful unless you can guesstimate when the next fireworks will launch. Use a remote shutter control and tripod.

Re: Any Hints on how to take Fireworks?

People shooting New year eve fireworks will start scouting and securing for premier places near the bay at around 4~5pm so you have to be an early bird to catch a "nice" spot.
Look for the launch pad, there should be three for NYE so aim your focus at the centre launch pad.
Weigh down your tripod as the vibrations from the fireworks might cause a bit of a problem.
Disable OIS to conserve power and disable AF before setting focus to infinity, for NYE fireworks that means manual focus on the furthest building across the bay.
F8-F16 depends on your len's sweet spot, trying testing it out with those mini fireworks stick or what you call that.
If the fireworks is well spread out then it's ok to use blackcard as overlapping fireworks will result is a whiteout scenario.
Always keep ISO to 100 or less.
4 sec exposure should give you a variety of fireworks considering how packed is the NDP, YOG and Vivo.
If there is little or no wind then be prepared to use smaller aperture and shorter exposure time to prevent a blownout smoke image. (Pls refer to Vivo fireworks)
Don't try to take every fireworks around the bay (NDP n YOG), just stick to the area you have focus earlier on.
28mm (35mm format) or less is good enough but a wide angle lens will be even better as you can cover the reflection of the fireworks too. (You can do a vertical shot which will crop out some of the fireworks but still have your reflection)

Re: Any Hints on how to take Fireworks?

Originally Posted by Agrivar

Countdown to 2011 is coming.. plan to somewhere in the Marina Bay area to try and take the fireworks.. Any hints for this kind of photography? its night as well as fast action.. so any night scene mode i use will give motion blur...

and try to find previous years firework photos to have a good gauge of where are the good spots and preplanned your framing and composition. Probably you will still need to adjust some more for the first few fireworks but doing your homework and getting ready will allow you to have a good chance capturing the best fireworks. This is before the smoke gets build up.

Re: Any Hints on how to take Fireworks?

if u r using a black card to selectively block exposure, u have to be a little selective on which fireworks u intend to expose as a collage for in the single shot. Sometimes one or two big high bursts with lower tier-ed ones for instance ..